Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
It's amazing to me how logic can start and immediately stop. We often hear the argument that secession was constitutional under the U.S. Constitution. Then the logic argument stops.
If secession were constitutional, then legally, following the Civil War, states in secession were forced to continue in the United States, under the tip of a bayonet. If secession were legal, then states were forced from the time of the Civil War to remain in the Union under martial law and not Constitutional law. That presents a problem that I never see the "secessionist" proponent ever mention.
Of course, those who argue for the right of secession, never mention the legal word -contract. In the modern world, most people sign contracts, yet some never discover its application to Constitutional law, the U.S. Constitution, also a contract.
Some historians easily accept that states had the unilateral right to break the contract, the U.S. Constitution. But don't ask these same people if they have the unilateral right to break the contract with the auto loan company. Just try to keep the vehicle and not make the monthly payments. Louie with the tow truck has a track record of showing up, secretly, to extract such a vehicle.
It's amazing to me how logic can start and immediately stop. We often hear the argument that secession was constitutional under the U.S. Constitution. Then the logic argument stops.
Yes that argument runs that the compact between states enumarates, delinates and defines those rights and powers delegated to the Federal government, and retains for thge people or the states all others, SDecesion therfore being a right of the people is an undelagated right of the people. The logic is perfect, because the constition is excplicite "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
Quote:
Originally Posted by whitworth
If secession were constitutional, then legally, following the Civil War, states in secession were forced to continue in the United States, under the tip of a bayonet. If secession were legal, then states were forced from the time of the Civil War to remain in the Union under martial law and not Constitutional law. That presents a problem that I never see the "secessionist" proponent ever mention.
Yes again you are correct,thats exactly what occured, Georgia v. Stanton and Mississippi v. Stanton etc found no USSCcourt had jursdiction to rule on the pres/congress edicts/laws on reconstruction and or martial law.
By the second section of the third article of the Constitution "the judicial power extends to all cases, in law and equity, arising under the Constitution, the laws of the United States," etc., and as applicable to the case in hand, "to controversies between a State and the citizens of another State" — which controversies, under the Judiciary Act, may be brought, in the first instance, before this court in the exercise of its original jurisdiction, and we agree that the bill filed presents a case, which, if it be the subject of judicial cognizance, would, in form, come under a familiar need of equity jurisdiction; that is, jurisdiction to grant an injunction to restrain a party from a wrong or injury to the rights of another, where the danger, actual or threatened, is irreparable, or the remedy at law inadequate. But, according to the course of proceeding under this head in equity, in order to entitle the party to the remedy, a case must be presented appropriate for the exercise of judicial power: the rights in danger, as we have seen, must be rights of persons or property, not merely political rights, which do not belong to the jurisdiction of a court, either in law or equity.
The remaining question on this branch of our inquiry is, whether, in view of the principles above stated, and which we have endeavored to explain, a case is made out in the bill of which this court can take judicial cognizance. In looking into it, it will be seen that we are called upon to restrain the defendants, who represent the executive authority of the government, from carrying into execution certain Acts of Congress, inasmuch as such execution would annul and totally abolish the existing State Government of Georgia, and establish another and different one in its place: in other words, would overthrow and destroy the corporate existence of the State, by depriving it of the means and instrumentalities whereby its existence might, and otherwise would, be maintained....
That these matters, both as stated in the body of the bill, and in the prayers for relief, call for the judgment of the court upon political questions, and upon rights, not of persons or property, but of a political character, will hardly be denied. For the rights, for the protection of which our authority is invoked, are the rights of sovereignty, of political jurisdiction, of government, of corporate existence as a State, with all its constitutional powers and privileges. No case of private rights or private property infringed, or in danger of actual or threatened infringement, is presented by the bill, in a judicial form, for the judgment of the court....
Having arrived at the conclusion that this court, for the reasons above stated, possesses no jurisdiction over the subject matter presented in the bill for relief, it is unimportant to examine the question as it respects jurisdiction over the parties.
The bill must be dismissed for want of jurisdiction
However other USSC rullings on individuals, Ex parte William H. McCardle for instance, the court could not evade a lack of jusdiction and also found no constitional provision for reconstruction, but instead followed international law to make reconstrction lawfull against individuals.
Quote:
Originally Posted by whitworth
Of course, those who argue for the right of secession, never mention the legal word -contract. In the modern world, most people sign contracts, yet some never discover its application to Constitutional law, the U.S. Constitution, also a contract.
Some historians easily accept that states had the unilateral right to break the contract, the U.S. Constitution. But don't ask these same people if they have the unilateral right to break the contract with the auto loan company. Just try to keep the vehicle and not make the monthly payments. Louie with the tow truck has a track record of showing up, secretly, to extract such a vehicle.
Contract, you mean compact right?, because otherwise "We the Delegates of the People of Virginia duly elected in pursuance of a recommendation from the General Assembly and now met in Convention having fully and freely investigated and discussed the proceedings of the Federal Convention and being prepared as well as the most mature deliberation hath enabled us to decide thereon Do in the name and in behalf of the People of Virginia declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the People of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will: that therefore no right of any denomination can be cancelled abridged restrained or modified by the Congress by the Senate or House of Representatives acting in any Capacity by the President or any Department or Officer of the United States except in those instances in which power is given by the Constitution for those purposes ... " and also found in RI and NY ordinaces of adoption of the constition, ie body of the constition, state ordinces citeing preganat negatives to the main body and then tyhey sign, making the contract between the states a legal contract.
No FF argued that a contract broken by one side would not destroy the Union or be unlawfull, not even Hamiltion and Webster.
By contrast both James Kent and Joseph Story have far more impressive credentials, a far larger body of writings, and biographies written about them that are available today.
Rawle provides no support for his assertion. He simply asserts there is a right to secession and moves on. Compare that with Joseph Story, who provides supporting documentation for his view against secession.
Regards,
Cash
Concentrating on one small point, storys opinion was that secesion was unconstitional, he held this on the basis that all 13 states together and at the same time adopted the Union after rebeling against the UK, and that no state had ever been sov before gaining it together as a group from the Uk.
His works acept that if any state had been sov prior to entry into the Union, then secesion as a right would exist for that state, he simpl claimed that no state was sov before entering into the Union and thus aquiring Sov status.
Story denied that the constition was a compact between sov states.
Rawle on the other hand had been educted on a different undertstanding at Va William and Mary who turned out VA lawyers, they used Tuckers Blackstone that followed the constitional right of secesion as laid out in Uk fundamental law, in some circamstances as being an inherent right.
Rawles book was used to educate at one time, as was Storys works, but in different parts of the country, hence growing up in the NE you believed storys acount of the constition because it was the only one available, untill the debates were published and everyone could see Story version was actually not correct.
Every time secesion was used it was debbated in congress as to if it was constional, every vote was won by the those argueing it was, as late as 1860 this was so, what the Republicans said was wrong with the US political system was that this protection of minoritys had become perverted into preventing majority rule, which of course it was, and thyey reused unsound, factually incorrect history to argue why it should not be alllowed to continue.
Kent's Commentaries appeared, in 1826, it is the first recorded litary claim that secesion as a right is not contained in the US constition, no one during the Elliot debates refused the right of secession to exist for the people of a state when the Constition was being crafted, in fact the oposite is to be found, Hamilton express the conditional right of secesion in the Federlists, Madison does the same and also in the debates themselves as well as the Va ratification ordinaces. Kent contains no reference to state ratifcication nor state SC rullings to support his view, its meerly his view, whiich is contradicted by the states ordinances of ratification and SC rullings as to the status of state sov and that the FF created a National Government proper, and not Federal compact of sov states.
Story on the Constitution, 1833 vol. i, Book 3, Sec. 321.
Story deemed the constition not a compact between Sov states, if it was he held that secesion naturally followed, but denied that the constion was a compact between sov states and so therfore secesion as a right did not exist.In this following part of his work, Judge Story fully admits the right of a State to withdraw or secede from the Union, if the Constitution be a Compact between the States as States, even without an open breach of the Compact by the one party.
"The obvious deductions, which may be, and indeed have been drawn, from considering the Constitution as a Compact between the States, are, that it operates as a mere treaty, or convention between them, and has an obligatory force upon each State no longer than it suits its pleasure, or its consent continues;, that each State has a right to judge for itself in relation to the nature, extent, and obligations of the instrument, without being at all bound by the interpretation of the Federal Government, or by that of any other State; and that each retains the power to withdraw from the Confederacy, and to dissolve the connection, when such shall be its choice; and may suspend the operations of the Federal Government, and nullify its acts within its own territorial limits, whenever, in its own opinion, the exigency of the case may require. These conclusions may not always be avowed; but they flow naturally from the doctrines which we have under consideration. They go to the extent of reducing the Government to a mere Confederacy during pleasure; and of thus presenting the extraordinary spectacle of a nation existing only at the will of each of its constituent parts."
Both Kent and Story cite Abridgment of American Law by Nathan Dane, in which he also agrees that a sov state can secede, not only that, he signed a motion to actually seccede from the Union, hardly a good move to cite a secesionist, but then secesion over Texas was just around the corner and a whole new set of problems to solve.
"But in cases of deliberate, dangerous and palpable infractions of the Constitution, affecting the Sovereignty of a State and liberties of the people, it is not only the right, but the duty of such a State to interpose its authority for their protection in the manner best calculated to secure that end. When emergencies occur which are either beyond the reach of the judicial tribunals, or too pressing to admit of the delay incident to their forms, States which have no common umpire must be their own judges, and execute their own decisions."Nathan Dane, George Cabot, Zephenia Swift, James Hillhouse, and Harrison G. Otis.
Mr. Rawle, an eminent jurist of Pennsylvania, wrote an elaborate work upon the Constitution, which was published in 1825. He was United States District Attorney under Washington, and had been offered, by him, the Attorney-Generalship of the United States, and he disagreed with story, first he understood that the constiotion was a compact of sov states, and that ment each had an inalianble right to secede from the compact. The only difference between Story and rawle is on history, not law, both agree that if the union is a compact of sov states then the right of secesion exists, what they disagree on is history not law.
Senator Wade, of Ohio, at this time the Vice President of the United States, Mr. Wade, in the Senate of the United States, on the 23d of February, 1855, used the following language:Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 2d Session, 33d Congress, page 214.
"Who is to be judge, in the last resort, of the violation of the Constitution of the United States by the enactment of a law? Who is the final arbiter? The General Government, or the States in their Sovereignty? Why, sir, to yield that point, is to yield up all the rights of the States to protect their own citizens, and to consolidate this Government into a miserable despotism. I tell you, sir, whatever you may think of it, if this bill pass, collisions will arise between the Federal and State jurisdictions — conflicts more dangerous than all the wordy wars which are got up in Congress — conflicts in which the States will never yield; for the more you undertake to load them with acts like this, the greater will be their resistance."
"I said there were States in this Union whose highest tribunals had adjudged that bill to be unconstitutional, and that I was one of those who believed it unconstitutional: that my State believed it unconstitutional; and that, under the old Resolutions of 1798 and 1799, a State must not only be the judge of that, but of the remedy in such a case."
Not even all Republicans understod secesion did not exist as a right.
You should reconsider that Madison supported the idea that secession was right, was somewhere in the Consitution, etc. It simply does not add up to what the man stated.
And even Webster said peaceable secession was not possible.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
Neil your right breakups are rarely peaceful especially when one side uses force to make the other one stay with it.Good points Hanny.
__________________ "The sword is mighty, but principles laugh at swords. Overwhelming force may crush truth to earth but, crushed or not the truth is still the truth." Regards, Ashley
The way I see and the way some saw it, it was the South, trying to force slavery down everyone's throat, not just their own. And your right, breaking up is hard to do.
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
You should reconsider that Madison supported the idea that secession was right, was somewhere in the Consitution, etc. It simply does not add up to what the man stated.
And even Webster said peaceable secession was not possible.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
Unhion Blue
Madison spent most of life advovating and supporting the conditional right of secesion, the only time he spoke against secesion was late in life when he did not consider the circamstances warranted such a course of action, untill then he supported mainatained and expalnded at great length that he acepted, and used himself the right to secede.
I can give you plenty of Madason of the subject of secesion being lawful, constitional and an inherant right.
Secondly Webster said no such thing either to my knowledge, but perhaps you can point me to where you have found that he did.
The way I see and the way some saw it, it was the South, trying to force slavery down everyone's throat, not just their own. And your right, breaking up is hard to do.
Unionblue
Why do you believe that anyone was being forced to adopt slavary?, slavary natural limits of expansion gives it its georpahical limit to expand, you could not grow rice and corn in Utah like you dis in Miss and SC.
You should reconsider that Madison supported the idea that secession was right, was somewhere in the Consitution, etc. It simply does not add up to what the man stated.
And even Webster said peaceable secession was not possible.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
UnionBlue.
Does not add up?, Madison considered as the father of the constition is about as good a palce to start with when looking for an explantion of what the Constition means. I can cite dozens of times he ascribes and afirms he believed in the inherant, inaliable right of secesion, even in late life when he spoke out afgainst its use, it was because he did consider it prudent or justified at that time, not that he had been wrong for 30 odd years in argueing it existed as a right, and the final mode of redresse for a state in the Union.
Webster said that because he denied the Constition was a contract, he said it was the result of a contract (the Union) not a contract between sov states, and therfore all Sov rested with all the people of the Union, and therfore only the extra constional right of rebellion/revolution existed as the final mode of redresse.
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